I have used a single stage urethane (black) when painting my Corvettes in the garage in the past. The results were always favorable. In painting my 58 soon, I am thinking going with the charcoal metallic with the silver coves. I think it's a great color combination and it's unique to the 58. I know painting with metallics is a bit of a challenge; to make sure the metallic components are applied evenly. Also, this paint format with be two stage. Anyone have experience applying the two stage metallics and, if so, could you provide a description of application techniques. Thanks.
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Re: Painting with Metallics
To be clear (no pun intended), two stage urethane is a semiflat metallic base top coated with clear urethane applied before the base is fully cured.
My opinion, based on limited experience, is that the appearance difference between single stage and two stage metallic urethane is minimal; the clear will add some depth and additional environmental protection, but will have little effect on how the metallic appears. The difficulties of matching original acrylic lacquer metallic colors with the new technologies is well documented...count on spraying a few test panels to get it close.
Having painted some aftermarket side moldings for a late model Malibu with two stage urethane, I can tell you one VERY IMPORTANT POINT: I would definitely try to paint ALL parts on the same day or booth session if possible, and in more or less the orientation they will have on the car (pretty much SOP for metallics).
One of my Malibu door moldings had a little error (run, dirt, bubble) that was serious enough for me to remove the molding from the door (no easy task), remove the hickey, reprep and respray several days later. In spite of painstaking care to mix all the components exactly the same, and out of the same well-mixed cans, that one molding has a slightly different appearance than the other three. Who knows why? But...without being told which it is, most would never see it. With large adjacent panels, color/appearance mismatch will be more obvious. -
Re: Painting with Metallics
With metallics you have to be careful with your application or you can get the banding effect, in other words, stripes in your paint. It will take you a litte time to get your technique down pat.Dick WhittingtonComment
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Re: Painting with Metallics
Excellent point, Dickie.
For solid colors, most gun manufacturers say to overlap your passes half the width of the spray pattern. For metallics, Sata says to overlap by 2/3 of the pattern width.
It'll seem like you're getting nowhere fast, and with that much overlap, I expect you will either have to speed up your motion, or reduce the rate of material you're spraying...otherwise, you'll be seeing runs.Comment
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